Hersh said that the United States intended to blackmail Russia by undermining the “Nord streams”

The United States intended to blackmail Russia by blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in order to prevent Russia from conducting a special military operation in Ukraine, declared American journalist Seymour Hersh in an interview with Tichys Einblick.

“The idea was to find something unusual that the President [США] could use as bait or threat to convince [президента РФ Владимира] Putin [не начинать СВО]. <…> First of all, it was a threat. I don’t think it’s the government [США] very good at persuasion. They act more on the principle of “you are with us or against us.” The idea was to tell Putin: “We will blow up the pipelines if you cross the border into Ukraine,” Hersh said.

The American journalist believes that Washington wanted to convince Moscow to maintain the status quo in Ukraine.

The explosion at Nord Stream occurred on the night of September 26, 2022. Pressure dropped in both pipelines. Two subsequently discovered leaks were in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Sweden, and two more were in the Danish EEZ. Initially, Germany, Sweden and Denmark agreed to conduct a joint investigation, but this idea was later abandoned. In October 2022, Sweden announced the completion of the investigation, stating “increasing suspicions of gross sabotage”, but those responsible for what happened were not named. Moreover, Sweden refused to hand over the results of the investigation to Russia.

On February 8, Seymour Hersh published an investigation into the Nord Stream incident, in which he accused the United States and Norway of involvement in the bombing. The White House and the European Commission called this information unreliable.

A month later, Western media, citing new US intelligence reported about the possible involvement in the sabotage of a certain “pro-Ukrainian group”. The Kremlin doubted this information and called such messages are “coordinated stuffing”.

Earlier, the Russian authorities have repeatedly called for an international investigation of the incident with the participation of Russian representatives and pointed to the West’s unwillingness to transparently investigate the gas pipelines case. 27 March United Nations Security Council rejected proposal of the Russian Federation to create a commission to investigate the terrorist attacks on the Nord Streams. In the Kremlin expressed regret in connection with such a decision and stressed that the Russian side “will continue efforts to ensure that this topic is not rolled up.”